


Ficlet Collection Steve/Tony

by andiyangi



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Fluff, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-12 20:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2123280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andiyangi/pseuds/andiyangi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A place to put my ficlets from Tumblr so I don't lose them. Steve/Tony mostly fluff</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Just Ugh

**Author's Note:**

> These will be unbeta'd and likely written from my phone in haste. I would love feedback as I consider myself to be very poor at endings.

Just ugh! 

 

Every bone in his body aches to do something but the rational half of his brain isn’t letting that happen. He stared down at his phone and realized belatedly that he had texted him back. Of course Tony recognized the number after years of dialing him half drunk it was hard to forget not to mention that numbers were his thing, his element. 

So to sum up his already crappy week, Steve was being sweet wonderful and annoyingly perfect and making Tony’s heart do weird things without trying, ex number one Pepper had gotten the man she had cheated on Tony with hired at his company, ex number two and former fiancée Ty had texted him after four years of absolute silence he hadn’t even seen the guy at any charity functions in the past four years and now this. Just ugh. 

He stared down at the piece of tech in his hand like it had wronged him in some way. 

"What do you do when your ex-fiancée texts you?" He asked aloud.

"You ignore it." Tony startled and spun around to face whoever had come in on his minor freak out. 

"And if you texted them back already?" He asked Steve, a hint of hopelessness and frustration in his voice. 

"Turn off your phone Tony, I finally get you to come out of the lab and you’re texting your ex."

"He texted me…" Tony grumbled, "it’s like my exes are talking to each other trying to see who can make me freak out first." 

"I’m sure that is not quite true. Come on, turn off the phone you promised me you would show me what food trucks are and why people think they’re appealing," Steve said with a smirk, knowing he had won. 

Tony left his phone on the coffee table and went to grab his coat. “You make me want to be better.” He told Steve honestly. 

"You don’t need to be better, I’ll take you anxiety and all." 

Steve kissed his nose and Tony thought that even if his exes were competing for his unhappiness he would show both of them what could have been.


	2. Scrapbooking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Tony have a little secret and Clint thinks everything is a euphemism.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got sent home from work because I couldn't walk from one side of the store to the other without limping. So I'm in my room writing about Steve and Tony, think I'm going to do something about wump!Tony next because my knee is killing me and I want one of them to feel my pain!

“Scrapbooking?” Tony looked up from his tablet, shooting Clint a doubtful look. He had to be messing around.

“I am not kidding Tony, I went up to see if he wanted some lunch yesterday and there he was on his floor scraps of paper, photos, news articles, glue, and glitter Tones! I walked in on Captain America using glitter and that is not a euphemism!” Clint declared despairingly.

“What in the hell could using glitter be a euphemism for, Clint, let’s be at least a little logical. Did you ask him what he was doing?” Tony put his tablet down on the table, to show his friend he was completely invested in their ridiculous conversation.

“NO! Why would I do that?”

“Well what was he scrapbooking?”

“I didn’t look that hard!”

“Then why are you freaking out about something that is none of your business? Seriously what Steve does with his own time is his business. Just like what you do and who you do is your business, Clint. Don’t think we have forgotten about the security breach you brought back.” Tony sighed, just thinking about that nightmare gave him a headache. He looked down at his empty mug, sighed again. Clint let his head fall onto the table, clearly not getting the reaction he wanted out of Tony. “What is really bugging you Clint?”

He muffled his response into the table top.

“I’m sorry you’re going to have to pick your head up and speak to me like a human for me to understand that garbled nonsense.”

“I said!” Clint spoke dramatically, “Darcy was in there with him! I mean how am I supposed to compete with Captain America! She was all smiley and happy and they were having a great time and he’s like practically perfect in every way! They were scrapbooking! Not a euphemism!”

“Yes, I understand that not everything is a euphemism, you really don’t have to keep telling me. Clint if you haven’t realized by now that you’re not going up against Captain America in this field you’re going up against Steve Rogers, dork extraordinaire then there really is no helping you.” With that Tony refilled his coffee and headed down to his lab to let Clint stew on that.

 

Admittedly, the scrapbooking thing was interesting. Tony found himself wondering what Steve might have been scrapbooking but didn’t know how to bring it up without sound weird. He went a whole week without worrying too much about it, and it turns out he didn’t have to try and awkwardly ask Steve about information he had obtained from a teammate. Steve brought his scrapbooking down to Tony, well only parts of it.

There Steve was, sitting on the sofa cutting the papers he kept pulling off the printer into different shapes. Tony pushed himself away from his desk and let the chair take him halfway to Steve.

“I’m at a stopping point, hungry?” He asked, pushing himself the rest of the way over to his secret boyfriend.

“Little bit,” Steve admitted, putting the scissors and the pile of papers on the end table beside him. He stood over Tony, still seated in his rolling chair. It was intimate without being too much. Steve

“Whatcha got goin’ on?” Tony asked, nudging his head towards the end table.

Steve’s cheeks colored, “When I first woke up they handed me a tablet, a smart phone, and a laptop and pretty much left me to myself.” He took a breath before heading out the lab and to the elevator, “Yeah I’m adaptable and they’re pretty user friendly so it wasn’t hard to figure out how they worked, but they just let me know it is 2013 and good luck. I think Fury was just mad I broke out of his 1940’s hospital wing. I met Darcy through SHIELD and she helped me a lot with the history I had missed she realized I wasn’t really absorbing most of what we were going over and thought some old fashioned methods would help. We have a scrapbook for every decade of history.”

“Yeah, what decade are you guys on now?”

“Early 2000s.”

“Bad couple of years for me, have fun learning about Y2k?” Tony mashed the communal floor button, “Clint is jealous of your special bonding time with Darce. Says he can’t compete with Captain America. Before you start I already reminded him he would have been competing with Steve Rogers.”

“Yeah Darce is pretty crazy about him too.” Steve leaned against the elevator wall.

“Think we should tell ‘em?” Tony asked.

“About us or each other?”

“Each other, all of our teammates and half of SHIELD have a betting pool going on our love life. I’m wondering how long it takes before they realize that Galaga guy won like forever ago. I’d tell them, but I want to see their faces when they realize they didn’t know and that Galaga guy is the one that won.”

An easy silence fell between the pair, as the elevator dinged and the doors opened. “Thanks for not teasing me Tony.”

“You really think I’m an asshole don’t you?” Tony put an exaggerated hand to his heart, “I’m wounded.”

“It’s that image you keep going on about,” His tone was serious but there was a hint of a smile pulling at Steve’s lips, “I’m trying to help you out here.” He leaned over and kissed him softly. They parted hearing a gasp at the other end of the hall.

“NO WAY!” Clint shouted, “YOU ALL OWE ME MAJOR IT IS MY WEEK ASSHOLES!!!”

Tony laughed, “You planned that, didn’t you.”

“Merely coincidence,” Steve said with a shrug.

“Come on tactical genius, now I have to go break Clint’s heart and let him know Galaga guy is the real winner here.”


	3. Steve the Florist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Florist AU Steve works in the florist shop across the street from where Tony gets his coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to cheer up tony-starks-nipples on tumblr

Bruce worked across the street from the florist shop on fourth, at the coffee shop that had been there since before him and any of his friends had been born. The coffee shop had gotten a new lease on life when some hipster blogged about their homemade hot chocolate and that they has soy milk as an option, business had been good but every day before work Bruce would spend some of his precious free time at the florist shop across the street, even sometimes his break if it was early enough. To be honest he hadn’t even noticed the florist shop at first it was nothing special, just a run of the mill flower shop. It was Tony that had dragged him over there. Tony of all people, Tony who was deathly allergic to anything green, Tony who had to take allergy medicine like clockwork in the spring time. At first he had wondered why Tony even bother with the florist shop, it wasn’t like he had a vested interest in plant life, like Bruce, as a future botanist, did. Then he saw the new cashier, and everything seemed to make a little more sense.

Tony was blowing his nose again as he walked into the coffee shop. “Really?” Bruce said unamused. “You’re practically breaking out in hives this time, you either need to man up and ask him out so you can stop getting mucus all over my store or pine quietly across the street safely away from all the living things.”

“He’s just so interesting, Brucie. I just lost track of time.” Tony declared with an air of finality.

Cue Steve, who Bruce had just seen rushing across the street, current object of Tony’s attention. “Tony!” Steve said breathlessly, “you left your phone.”

Tony stopped rubbing at his eye, dabbing it one last time with a napkin, trying to get the tears to stop welling, but Steve saw them anyways. _Finally_ , Bruce thought _, maybe this will bring an end to this awful pining business._

“Are you alright?” Steve sat in the chair next to Tony, taking Tony’s hands in his and getting as close to the other man’s face to get a good look.

“Mhmm,” Tony nodded, unsure how his voice would sound after forgetting to take his allergy meds earlier that afternoon he just didn’t trust his voice anymore.

“You look terrible Tony,” Steve said with concern.

“M’fine,” Tony rasped out.

Steve looked quite shocked as if the last few pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, “Tony- are you allergic to flowers?”

Bruce had to stifle his laughter from behind the counter, and Tony looked a little ashamed with himself before nodding anyways.

Steve chuckled and looked up at Tony, with a small smirk that, to Bruce, looked like it held a lot of affection. “So you hang out in a florist shop when you’re allergic to flowers?”

“More like anything that’s green and alive,” Tony tried to joke, but knew that his gig was up and Steve had his number.

“So bringing a bouquet of flowers on a first date would be a bad idea?” Steve looked down at his hand still holding Tony’s.

“You want to go on a date?” Tony’s voice reached a high that Bruce had never heard before, and this time he couldn’t hide that laugh even if he tried.

“Well clearly you can’t keep coming over to the flower shop anymore. Hospital dates are not as much fun as regular dates.” Steve smiled at him, and Bruce could see why Tony was always going on about the guy, if that kind of smile was directed at Bruce all the time he would be enamored too, “So I guess we’re just going to have to see each other someplace that is not full of green living things, I would prefer it be in a more than friends way. Please tell me I don’t have to spell this out for you anymore.”

Tony shook his head, clearly having lost higher brain functionality required for speech.

“So if you’re less stuffy and not dying later tonight and want to catch a movie, call me. I put my number in your phone.” Steve smirked, before boldly deciding to lean in and place a soft kiss on Tony’s cheek. “See ya, Tony.”

Tony stood abruptly after Steve had walked out the door and knocked his chair over. He rushed over to the end of the counter where Bruce was wiping down the espresso machine. “You saw that happen right?” Tony demanded.

“Yeah Tony, I did.” Bruce said with an amused grin, “And if you want a date with that man I’d suggest you get home and take some pills before he comes to senses.” He laughed again as he watched Tony sprint out of the coffee shop and toward his apartment.

 


	4. Steve is not a morning person

Steve woke up slowly, trying to piece together what felt different about waking up. He looked over at the empty half of the king size bed he laid in with tired eyes. He draped his arm over his eyes and groaned before saying, “Jarvis Tony’s location if you don’t mind.”

“Master Stark is in the lab.”

“How long has he been in the lab?” Steve didn’t bother removing his arm from his face since it was blocking out the light streaming in from the window. He was acutely aware that he was not ready to start his day yet.

“About an hour, he seemed to have had an idea while sleeping. He does have a head of departments meeting with Miss Potts in a half hour that I have reminded him of twice now with no success.” Steve grinned, knowing exactly what Jarvis was implying. Tony, despite being an early bird preferred to spend any waking moment he could in his lab as opposed to in meetings, citing that meetings were a complete waste of his intellect. Steve had a love hate relationship with mornings, sometimes he woke up at five am and went for a run and was chipper all day, other days he could get away with sleeping until almost eleven and wouldn’t be able to speak English until he had three cup of coffee and some carbs in him. Today was one of the latter.

The irrational part of his brain urged him to stay in bed, Jarvis hadn’t directly asked him to make sure Tony got ready for his meeting. Yet the saner half of his brain reminded him that if Tony missed the meeting Pepper would rain fire from above and make them both miserable. Grudgingly, he inched towards the edge of the bed.

“You’re absolutely irresistible in the mornings, you know that?” Tony’s voice drifted into their bedroom from somewhere near the door. Steve let out a sigh of relief, glad he no longer had to make his way down to the labs to get his lover.

“You have a meeting, Tony.” Steve reminded him dutifully. “Jarvis said he nagged you already.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to leave until you woke up,” Steve felt Tony’s weight settle on his side of the bed. “And J told me you woke up.” Tony pressed his lips to the side of Steve’s face. Steve just groaned and rolled over away from Tony, hugging a stray pillow close, trying to bring the dark back so he could rest in peace. Tony’s hands roamed his back, massaging Steve’s shoulders. “Come on babe, I brought you coffee. You need to get out of bed, you have meetings today too.”

“Meetings are a waste of my strategic thinking brain.” Steve mumbled into the pillow.

“That made absolutely no sense.” Tony chuckled, and took to nudging Steve with his elbow.

Steve abruptly rolled back over with a load groan, “Fine!” He declared annoyed, “I’m awake.”

“Yeah you’re awake, now get out of the bed so I can be assured that you’re not going back to sleep after I leave for this meeting.”

Pouting, Steve did just that. Tony handed him a warm coffee mug, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and went to head back out the door. “Don’t be so grumpy.” He told Steve who was still standing in the same spot. “Go take a shower, eat some breakfast, and finish that sketch you were doing of the skyline before I so rudely interrupted you yesterday.” Steve grunted and took a long swig from the coffee mug. “Love you.” Tony said, hiding a smile behind his hand.

“Love you too, Tony,” Steve yawned, but started making his way to the bathroom to take a shower.

It was an hour later when Steve had finished getting ready for the day. He sat in front of one of the bay windows and looked at the sketch he had been working on yesterday, then looked up at the sky line in front of him. It was almost identical. The stray thought that somehow Tony had known just how long it would take him to get ready so he could continue his sketch with approximately the same lighting was pushed quickly to the side, there was no way. His phone buzzed beside him with a text, _If you don’t start sketching soon you’re going to miss this shading._ ­ _–TS_

Maybe Tony is smart as he thinks he is. Steve thought with a smile.


	5. OOPS! Steve accidentally proposes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Tony are getting ready for their anniversary trip and Tony gets a surprise.

___________________________________

      “Tony!” Steve snapped at his boyfriend entering the room, “Seriously, you said you had already packed!”

      Tony rolled his eyes, “And as we have been together for so long I feel like you should know that I lied.”

      “We’re going to be late now,” Steve sighed.

      “We’re not going to be late, throw some of my crap in a suitcase and if we forget anything we just stimulate the economy of…where are we going again?” Tony set his coffee mug down on the table, replacing the steaming mug with his tablet.

      “I swear how do you get anything done?”

      “A strong combination of having a learning super computer running my life, my best friend running my company, and my boyfriend making sure that I get food and water. I would die without you three.” Tony smiled at Steve from over his tablet, watching his boyfriend shuffle around their room throwing things messily into a large suitcase, “But I was not kidding when I said I don’t know where we are going.”

      Steve threw a pair of socks at Tony’s head, “Do you even know what today’s date is?”

      A quick glance at the corner of his tablet, and Tony almost dropped it. “Shit!”

     “There is my genius.”

     “I’msorrybabyIloveyoupleasedon’tleaveme.” Tony dropped the tablet on the bed, in favor of wrapping his arms around Steve. Steve wisely stopped packing and hugged Tony close.

     Steve scoffed, “I wouldn’t and you know that. Pepper packed your schedule so that SI would be ahead before you and I sailed away for a week and a half. I already knew you were going to be busy before this.” He stroked Tony’s hair, talking over his boyfriends ramblings. “I turned off the reminders because we have plenty of time together, and I didn’t want you getting too distracted by us that you would have to work while we were away.”

      Tony took a deep breath against Steve’s chest, “I’m still sorry, I should have known and not ignored your repeated attempts to get me to pack my clothes. In my defense I did get my suitcase out of the closet.”

      “Tony,” Steve said sternly, causing him to look up sharply. “Breathe, go finish your coffee, and calm down. You don’t need to be riled up before we get on a plane.” Steve kissed his brow again, “I love you, I’m not going to leave you because you have been too busy to remember our anniversary, I’m going to finish packing and we’ll head out.”

      Tony sat at the kitchen table, nursing his coffee and idly mulling over what he could do to make it up to Steve. He almost didn’t notice he had finished his coffee, flipping through the specs on his tablet. He picked up the empty mug and put it to his mouth again, seeing something at the bottom and assuming it was coffee. He was disappointed to find that he was wrong. Tony looked down into the mug, and nearly dropped it. “Steve!” He called out.

      “Yeah, Tony?” Steve came out of their room two suitcases trailing behind him.

      “Is this a joke, or are you serious?” Tony held out the mug to him. Steve looked into the mug and smiled.

      “Well it was a gag gift from Natasha, she told me I had to do something cute and stereotypically gay. So yes and yes to answer your questions. I am serious. I do want to marry you. Did I want to ask you with a coffee mug? No, not really. But,” Steve got down on one knee in front of Tony, “Anthony Edward Stark, will you marry me?”

      Tony bit his lip, trying to keep all the emotions inside. “I ruin our anniversary trip and you ask me to marry you? That hardly seems like a good idea.”

      Steve shrugged, “I have a couple objections to that, mostly that that is not an answer. And I have old man knees, so do you want to marry me or not?”

      Tony laughed and pulled him up from his knees. He couldn’t stop the tears anymore and let them fall freely as he buried his face in Steve’s shoulder. “Yes, I do.”

      “Good, now we can have we just got engaged sex on the plane instead of thank god we got some time off together sex.” Steve smiled when Tony pulled away from his shoulder, his eyes glistening, and capture his fiancée’s lips with his own. But Tony pulled away first. "What?" Steve asked shocked

      "My ring!" Tony declared, "Where is my ring?"

      "I packed it Tony, just shut up and kiss me you can have your ring when we get to Europe."


	6. Bits and Pieces

Steve isn’t thinking about it the first time it happens. He punched one of the cyborg alien things so hard a bit of it came off. He wasn’t sure what bit, just a bit. So he made a mental note to go back and grab it so Tony can tinker with it. After all of the ewitu, or something equally unpronounceable, are dealt with he heads back and picks up the bit of machinery. Tony lands beside him to offer him a ride back up to Avenger’s Tower when he sees what is in Steve’s hands.

“Here,” Steve hands it over to Tony, knowing full well that he had no intention of going to the post mission debrief anyways, and makes his way over to the quinjet to get back to Avenger’s Tower with the non-flying superheroes. Three days pass without seeing Tony, and they are filled with awful meetings about how the aliens made it to earth and how we’re going to keep them from coming back.

Tony comes into the kitchen as Clint is explaining to Steve how his new arrows work and Tony completely blows past Clint to grip Steve’s shoulders and steal his attention.

“Thank you so much for the cyborg arm, I mean it wasn’t really a cyborg arm but in laymen’s terms I guess you could call it a cyborg arm. In short they had technology that would have taken us another 20 years to make happen and now we have a better understanding…” Steve lost whatever the rest of Tony’s techno babble was instead focusing on the way Tony’s eyes were completely lit up. Steve was taken aback when Tony pulled him into a brief hug, apparently done with his speech on revolutionary technology and left the kitchen with a quick, “You’re the best Cap!” Thrown over his shoulder.

“What was that about?” Clint asked.

“Gave him some of the alien tech from our last fight.” Steve shrugged and turned away from Clint to refill his coffee mug and hide the blush that covered his cheeks. Steve resolved to try and see Tony smile and light up like that more often.

So over the next three months Steve takes to using unnecessary force on any villains with advanced tech. After every battle taking about an hours’ worth of his time gathering up the broken tech, trying to find the most complete pieces he can before boxing it up and taking it down to Tony. But after the first couple weeks Tony has stopped smiling as brightly and for the life of him Steve can’t figure out why. Maybe the tech isn’t good enough? Maybe he’s just bringing Tony junk down to his lab and cluttering it up and now he’s annoyed? He’s on his way down to ask Tony if everything is alright when the alarm to Assemble goes off.

Steve merely sighs and jogs off to get his uniform and get to the quinjet.

It is a particularly brutal battle, the Avengers find themselves outnumbered by their opponents. To top it off they brought a giant attack dog, which for the first fifteen minutes of fighting Ironman is trying to find a soft spot for. He’s praying to all the God’s he doesn’t believe in that this particular type of alien has a hive mentality similar to the Chitauri. All he’s managed to do is irritate the damn thing. In his peripheral Steve sees that Godzilla like creature lunge for Tony and catch him by the arm of the suit. The repulsar blasts are ineffective. He sees Tony get shaken like a rag doll and the arm to the suit is released and Steve can’t see if Tony released it or if it was pulled off forcibly. It hardly matters because Steve is on his way to Tony’s side. It takes a minute for Tony to get back in the air, having lost a stabilizer. And there they are together taking this thing down. Steve’s brute force and Tony’s quick thinking take it down. No hive mentality with these creatures but without their heavy hitter in the mix most of them are calling it quits and high tailing it out of the Avenger’s way.

Before Tony can say anything to Steve, the Captain was running off scouring the three sounding blocks for the missing Ironman arm. He doesn’t return until he has found it and rushes over to Tony, who has stripped off the upper portion of his armor.

He knows he has the stupidest grin on his face when hands the arm back over to Tony. Immediately everyone goes quiet and he looks around at them confused. “What?”

“Why?” Tony asks.

“It’s important to you.” Steve replies simply.

“But you hate all this advanced technology. I thought seeing the Ironman suit get all torn up would be the highlight of your day.” Tony looks down at the metal arms in his hands, then back up at Steve.

“I’m confused!” Clint declares.

“Me too,” Steve looks up at Tony. “I don’t hate technology. I mean I don’t get it, but I’m working on it.”

“Then why do you go all super sayian 3000 when we’re fighting technology bad guys? I thought beating the crap out of all that tech was a way to get rid of your unresolved issues about being dumper 70 years in the future.”

“I don’t really get that refrence.” Steve admits, “But I don’t beat on the technology to take my anger out on it. I do it so I can bring you the pieces, because it makes you happy. Or it did- at first…” And as soon the words are out of his mouth he regrets them. He didn’t want to have this conversation in front of the whole team. But they’re going to find out anyways so he steels his nerves and tries to make direct eye contact with Tony but finds himself blushing and looking at the _super interesting_ rock on the ground as he mumbles, “And I just really liked seeing you happy.”

Still staring at the ground he sees the arm of the Ironman armor clatter to the ground. “Steve look at me.” Tony says, taking his arm and stopping him from bending down to pick up the armor. “Have you been bringing me boxes of super villain tech for the past couple of months?”

Steve nods mutely, unsure what his voice is going to do in this situation.

“You could have told me that was you.” Tony chuckled, he let his hand slide down Steve’s arm and interlocked their fingers. “Somebody has been leaving me these boxes of alien tech and I really thought it was SHIELD giving me their leftovers. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Didn’t know what to say.” Steve mumbled, “But you liked them, right? They’re not cluttering up your workshop or not good enough, right?”

“They’re great Steve, but for future reference I like flowers too.” Tony chuckles before kissing Steve's knuckles softly.

Steve can feel his face heating all over but the smile Tony is giving him is just too much to handle.

“If I keep bringing you alien tech will you smile like that forever?” Steve asks absently, apparently no longer in control of his brain to mouth filter.

Tony moves into Steve’s space and whispers in his ear. “If you have dinner with me tonight alone in a fancy restaurant I’ll smile at you all night long, darling. But only for you, Steve.”


	7. Tattoos pt. 1

For as long as he can remember tattoos were a way of showing your class and wealth. The nicer your tattoos, the more that there were it didn’t matter the content, the better off you were in life. Those with no ink under their skin were looked down on, like second class citizens at best. Tony got his first tattoo at fourteen, the first one in his class to have one. Howard had insisted, and paid a fortune for it. It wasn’t big and he let Tony get what he wanted so Tony didn’t care. Howard was only doing it to make sure that everyone around ‘his boy’ knew exactly who he was. A Stark.

Howard had pin up girls covering his arms, Tony thought it looked stupid having women all over his arms, but it fit so he never said too much on the subject. The rest of his tattoos were even dumber Tony thought, so he always zoned out when his dad started going on about them. His mother on the other hand had delicate swirls and swatches of color smattered along her body, she had been one of the first to have tattoos that resembled so closely a watercolor technique only ever captured before on paper.

The first one was Dum-E or at least a piece of the schematics from Dum-E. The artist didn’t know what it was and asked Tony twice if he was sure that was what he wanted before finally getting started on the actual inking. After the first one the rest came naturally, he added binary down his arms, and more lines of code. His arms became a testament to his work. A little bit of each project was stitched together there. Before Afghanistan he had a tattoo on his chest and it was the one he was sad to see go a water color rose now deformed by scar tissue. He never fixed it, thought of it as divine punishment almost, nothing so beautiful, nothing like his mother. He wasn’t meant to have beautiful things. Growing up being told that your ink is what makes you a man, and how much ink tells you who you can associate with Tony found it extremely odd that his father admired someone with only one tattoo. One that couldn’t even be seen with a t-shirt on. Showing off the tattoo was part of the whole deal.

Steve only has the one tattoo that he got before the serum, he went to get another after the serum but it just didn’t seem right. So he still only has the one. Just a four leaf clover with his mother’s signature swirling down the stem. It seemed wrong to him, that now that he could change his status now he could present as more he didn’t want to. He was born into a lowly Irish family and then he could barely afford his only tattoo, now a days people were having their ink change so frequently. He was content with just the one.

So when Steve noticed the arrow tattoo show up on Natasha’s left forearm he was momentarily surprised. After noticing Natasha’s it seemed only appropriate the next time he saw Clint he noticed that on his left forearm a black widow had been added. Having a set of ink, since in this case they weren’t matching- but were definitely part of a set, that was visible to the world was completely unheard of before Steve had gone down in the plane. Sets of and even matching tattoos were becoming more popular at the time, Steve had even helped a couple of the commandos in their rare free time come up with ideas that they could share with their partners. Found himself wondering to the ink covering Tony’s body idly questioning if there had ever been a lucky man or woman to share a visible mark with him.

He asked Tony one day as they were headed back from a press conference, not thinking about the words coming out of his mouth. “Are any of your tattoos part of a set?”

If Tony was shocked or surprised he kept it to himself, only cocked his head to get a better look at Steve. He deliberated a moment before looking off at a blank wall. “One.” He tapped his chest where the disfigured rose reminded him not to get too close, not to ruin the beautiful things in the world; that he could look but not touch. “My mother had a matching watercolor rose on her chest. Mine is mutilated by scar tissue now.”

“Would you get another?” Steve asked, then snapped his mouth shut audibly. Berating himself so loudly in his own head he almost missed Tony’s reply.

Tony only raised an eye brow at him this time before answering, “I’m a bit old for that don’t you think? Besides, I don’t really deserve good things like that.”

“Everyone deserves good things, Tony.” Steve says softly, but ultimately lets the subject drop.

He finds himself thinking again of sets of tattoos when he sees Jane and Thor not even a day later. If he hadn’t walked into the kitchen so early and seen them in their pajamas he would never have known the pair had matching constellation tattoos on their hips. He feels a little relieved that not everyone is so public about their ink, despite what he had walked in on them doing in the kitchen being the exact opposite of that kind of privacy.

Steve is sure that if he were ever going to get a set tattoo with someone he would want it to be private, hidden from the public. He admires Tony’s tattoos but he has noticed the way Tony regards his ink, like it was a necessity. And with Howard as his father it probably was. The ink is still meaningful to Tony though and that is what really matters. Months pass by in a barely noticeable way. The team becomes an actual team, which is able to function together only after getting spectacularly drunk while a sober Tony and Steve videoed the whole thing. With the help of his teammates Tony gets sober, and hasn’t had a drink since right after New York. The unspoken after Pepper left him is acknowledged but again, not mentioned. Steve keeps thinking about Tony, and for months he doesn’t think about it. They are friends. Or so he thinks until Clint brings it up.

The team is helping with the reconstruction of New York, Steve and Tony being the key players in the superhero community it’s nice to see them out. Nick is just grateful for the good publicity that his rag tag group of heroes is throwing his way because Steve started going to help clear streets, and found Tony doing much the same just more low profile work. Donations, and fixing his tower himself instead of hiring a crew of workers to get it back up and running. Since he caught him doing that he’s been dragging any available Avenger with him every day.

“I thought you and Tony had a date today?” Clint asked. He was passing out water with Steve to those that had been there since earlier than they were.

“We were going to go down to DC today? It’s not a date, Clint. He had a head of departments meeting to teleconference in on. We’re just putting it off until tomorrow.” Steve sighed tiredly, but started to think about all the time he spent with or around Tony and how often his thoughts would wonder about the glowing arc reactor he no longer sported.

“So you guys aren’t fucking down in Tony’s lab?” That brought his attention back to the present.

“No?” Steve said, slowly turning to look at Clint. “Why do you guys think that that’s what we’re doing in there?”

“Because you guys are dating Tasha heard you ask Tony about getting a set done together.”

“As a spy I feel like you should know better than to take something completely out of context like that as fact.” Steve set to moving some of the heavier items by hand, Clint trailing along beside him. “Will you at least pretend to move stuff?” Steve snapped at him. “Tony and I are not getting a set done, we’re not a couple either, and were certainly not…fonduing! In his lab. Mostly, that seems unsanitary.”

“But not objectionable! You would totally do it!” Steve threw a small piece of rock at Clint.

“Get back to work.” He mumbled his face turning a deeper shade of red.


End file.
